A Little Therapy, Please

My wife says I'm an impatient driver. It's usually when I'm talking to the driver in the car ahead of me-- the one that is being way too cautious in waiting to make that left turn. It's usually when I have somewhere to be and I encounter traffic-- like one other car. I've never really given it too much thought. I'm a safe driver with no history of a moving accident-- except for that one time I slid into the back of a dumb-ass driver who stopped(!) on a freeway on-ramp waiting for traffic to clear in snow. I don't speed any faster than anyone else is going.  All in all, I don't think I'm much different than any one else out there on the road-- except maybe that elderly guy I followed onto the freeway yesterday in his aging minivan who never took it up above 50!

And then I got to the traffic light here at the hotel. I'm on the outskirts of Colorado Springs at the intersection of lost and nowhere. There are about 5 other cars in view and someone in some civil engineer's office has decided they need a left turn signal here. As I approach, the arrow turns red and there I sit. And sit. And sit and sit and sit. I could have been in a 747 and I wouldn't have been obstructing traffic-- because there wasn't any! And I'm sitting there for what seems like an eternity and I'm thinking the light at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica isn't this long. And I'm thinking about just dodging to the right, going straight and making a u-turn-- or just running it. And then I realized: I am an impatient driver. I have nowhere pressing to be. No one to meet. I really just need to be safe and get home in one piece in a couple of days.

I don't know if I do it because secretly I enjoy it or what drives my impatience. I can be very, very patient in the OR. I can be patient in the kitchen. I guess I just get irritated when I'm waiting for things.

I don't think it's a matter for Ritalin or a beta-blocker.  I do know I grew up around impatience with my Mom at home and my Dad behind the wheel so perhaps I can write it off as a learned behavior. Whatever the case may be, it's a characteristic with little intrinsic value. Impatience never makes anything happen any faster, never makes me feel any better, and always leaves me feeling anxious and somewhere between angry and annoyed.

I guess that's the beauty of writing about it. Keeping a journal lets you recognize a behavior, talk it over, and hopefully put it behind. It's therapy. And the beauty is, I don't have to pay you for "listening."

My homework will be the drive back to Denver International in a couple of hours. I'll be patient-- unless that line for security is just way too long!